The musings of my life…

The WTF Appointment

He was so apologetic about the fact that I had to find out that my cycle had failed on the same day I fetched my Dad’s ashes and kept on saying how he could not believe how much more I could take in terms of life handing me lemons (not in those exact words but you get the general idea)…

It just goes to show that when my gut tells me that I have a right to be worried about something, I need to trust it. I was very worried about my 4 eggs that never made not even one measly embryo in the lab after my GIFT and well, after seeing my fert reports yesterday at our meeting no wonder I was anxious and “knew” there was something to worry about. On day one of fert we had zero cells – that means that we never even had fertilization people! Day two had a measly one cell on three of the eggs and then they arrested. My FS’s theory (and it is just a theory but one I completely agree with) is that what happens in the lab often mirror’s what happens in the tube. They have had cases of GIFT where the ferts in the lab were not great which still resulted in a pregnancy for that patient but the defining factor was that there WAS fert… We both felt that with zero ferts in the lab that more than likely not one of our eggs even ferted in my tubes either.

And this has taken us both completely by left field. There is no way that we would have even done GIFT if we felt that there was even the remotest chance of a zero fert. My previous ferts have always been EXCELLENT. Like 95 – 100% excellent.

But now that it’s happened it’s opened up a whole new can of worms for us moving forward. Our FS is no longer willing to take a chance on zero fert so any future treatment we do will be half ICSI half normal fert. We discussed ZIFT briefly but we both feel that for us it’s best to keep me out of theatre and to go back to IVF/ICSI and from there we’ll see how embryo’s develop to decide whether we do a day 3 or day 5 transfer.

Cliff was also worried that perhaps his sperm is the issue at play here, and although all looks great on paper our FS said that often sperm looks wonderful on paper but there might be an underlying issue with it. In order to cross this off the list we are going to do two things relating to sperm. The first one is a relatively new procedure called HPA testing which will determine if his sperm have mature DNA or not. The second thing we’re going to do depends on how many eggs we retrieve. If we get 12 eggs or more (we’re definitely going to shoot for 12 and stim me a little more aggressively to try to get them) we’ll do a diagnostic donor sperm cross over comparison. So we’ll take 2 or 3 eggs and use donor sperm on those and let the rest be fertilized by Cliff’s sperm and see the comparisons in the embies. The theory is if there is an underlying issue with Cliff’s sperm this is where we may see it come through. Personally though I don’t believe that there is an issue with sperm in our case. Cliff’s samples have always been good and I don’t see that being an issue, but we’re doing it anyway just to ensure we’ve crossed it off the list of possibilities.

I brought up donor eggs and he categorically said that he would not take that course of action at all yet. Our embryo’s have always looked really good and of course there was that chemical pregnancy which leads us to believe that there is still hope for us to conceive with our own genetic material.

Our wonderful FS also said that the challenge with our case was that there were no clear indicators for solution. It was not a cut and dried case of saying “ok donor eggs are the way forward” or “donor sperm is the way forward” or “your uterus is too damaged you need to look at surrogacy” and so on and so so forth.

So that’s it. The POA.

We’re taking a break from ttc though for quite a while. We’re both exhausted by this journey now. I need to take some time to re-connect with my husband, deal with my father’s passing away properly, and to just live my life a little. Cliff needs some time to re-connect with his wife and to just live his life a little. We’re going to start exercising together and will be getting ourselves back on track with a healthier lifestyle again. We’ll go away for a couple of long weekends to just chill together.

Wow Sam. That’s alot of info to take in all at once. I think you have ALOT of positives in your favour and time is what you and Cliff need right now to heal and find yourselves again. I’m so proud of you for not giving up even when I know how bloody hard it is to carry on when your heart is full of so much hurt & pain. Sending lots of love xxxxx

Oh I hate the follow up appointments, but then I liked them too…sort of a strange feeling.

The one thing that jumps out at me is your doctor sounds invested in making this work for you and Cliff and that is such a good thing. Many doctors treat patients like another piece of meat on the conveyor belt and it’s a refreshing change to hear your positive news.

Take time to heal chick, enjoy one another and only take the next step when you are ready x

Your POA sounds good! We also wanted to do the DS cross over test but somehow it never happened. Would be interested to hear about the DNA test and what the results are, this is a test that should be done together with any semen analysis and Im so glad to hear that most clinics in SA are doing it now, it really adds alot to just looking at the sperm on paper.

Taking a break is hard you never forget ttc but it is good for you and esp to reconnect with your hubby, that is always special. xxx

Glad that you have a POA as that always makes one feel better. In the meantime enjoy the break and reconnecting with your hubby.Gives you time to recharge and save up again for next treatment. As you say this whole process is exhausting.There is a lovely place we stayed at in Clarens about 2 years ago that you might want to consider for a long weekend-just so peaceful and beautiful.

So I guess that was a pretty good WTF appointment (love that description) then, as they go? Sounds to me like everything is still good with you and Cliff, just a once off bad luck situation. Have an AWESOME break. BIG HUGS!

My DH’s sperm was thought to be ok, good enough for IUI at any rate. When we did our IVF, an HPA test showed that the sperm were hopelessly immature, and all my eggs were ICSI’ed as a result. Your new POA looks very thorough.

Enjoy your break, it sounds like the right thing for you guys at the moment. Look after your heart, you’ve been through so much.